NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Two months after it was attacked in Yemen, the USS Cole arrived back in the United States this morning. The Blue Marlin transport ship brought the Cole to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where damage from the attack will be repaired. CNN's Charles Zewe is there -- Charles.</s>CHARLES ZEWE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Natalie, here in Pascagoula, you can see the Cole sitting aboard the heavy transport ship, Blue Marlin, sitting alongside a pier four at the Ingalls Shipyards here, where the Cole will be repaired. Right now, on board, FBI teams, two teams, are going over the insides of the ship where the bomb ripped apart the Cole in October, killing 17 sailors. The Cole made its return to the United States early this morning here in South Mississippi to the shipyard where it was built in 1995. Several hundred people showed up along the shoreline in Pascagoula to wave American flags and cheer the vessel as it was brought into the Ingalls shipyards, where it will undergo $240 million worth of repairs. Shipyard officials say that in the coming weeks, a patch, a metal patch, will be placed over the 40x40 foot hole in the side of the Cole. The ship will then be transferred to an area where all of its armament, where the missiles and bullets, et cetera that are stored on the Cole will be off-loaded, then put on land, where the repairs will begin. How long will it take? About a year. Officials say they expect the ship to return to service sometime in 2002. They say the repairs here will make a statement, that no one can get away with attacking a U.S. Ship, a major Naval vessel, and that vessel will be returned to service -- Natalie.</s>ALLEN: Charles Zewe, thank you.
USS Cole Arrives Back in States for Repair