GAO’s Report to Senate Fails to Back Iowa Blast Theory : Tests Fail to Back Finding of Sabotage in Fatal Iowa Blast

WASHINGTON —  Congressional investigators said today that their tests did not support the Navy’s finding that sabotage caused the explosion that killed 47 sailors aboard the battleship Iowa.

The congressional report, which came a day after the Navy reopened its investigation into the disaster, said the explosion could have resulted from gunpowder bags in the ship’s guns being rammed at “higher than normal speeds.”

The report was presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee by the General Accounting Office, which investigated the Navy’s controversial finding that gunner’s mate Clayton Hartwig probably sabotaged the battleship in the April 19, 1989, explosion.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) said today’s testimony by the GAO report “cast grave doubts on the Navy’s findings” that foreign material had been found in the gun barrel.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, responding to the GAO report, said he would “reserve judgment” until further investigation.

“They did the best job they could. Now there’s new evidence, new information that warrants reopening the investigation,” Cheney said. “But I think at this point I’d want to keep my powder dry, so to speak, until we have a better sense of exactly what this new information may contribute.”

Hartwig’s sister, Kathy Kubicina, who attended the hearing, told reporters: “My brother was only a victim . . . I hope after today this will get rid of any doubt in anyone’s mind.”

Retired Adm. Fred Moosally, the Iowa’s skipper at the time of the explosion and an outspoken critic of the investigation, sat in the front row during the hearing. But he declined to comment, saying, “I’m only here to listen.”

The Navy said it would have no immediate comment. But on Thursday, it ordered a halt to any firing of 16-inch guns aboard the service’s four battleships after an “unexplained” ignition of some gunpowder bags during testing.

Nunn said the GAO finding “will essentially eviscerate the Navy’s conclusion” that the explosion aboard the Iowa was the result of a wrongful, intentional act.

The GAO said tests at the Sandia National Laboratory “could not corroborate the Navy’s technical finding that an improvised chemical device initiated the explosion.”

Last fall, the Navy said Hartwig, who was killed in the explosion, “most probably” had placed “some type of detonation device” between gunpowder bags when he supervised the loading of the warship’s guns.

The GAO analysis made no mention specifically of Hartwig in its report.

The report said the Sandia Laboratory was “confident in its findings.”