<i>By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA Associated Press Writer ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Terror suspect Osama bin Laden claims he has nuclear and chemical weapons and will unleash them if the United States uses similar weapons against him, according to an interview published Saturday in one of Pakistan's largest newspapers. ``I wish to declare that if America used chemical and nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as a deterrent,'' the Dawn newspaper quoted bin Laden as saying in an interview near the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday night. The United States, which is bombing positions of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and bin Laden's al-Qaida network, says it has no evidence that bin Laden possesses nuclear weapons. Intelligence experts, however, believe his fighters have experimented with crude chemical weapons at a training camp in Afghanistan. ``They're seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons,'' President Bush said in Washington on Friday. ``Given the means, our enemies would be a threat to every nation and, eventually, to civilization itself.'' National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the United States had ``no credible evidence at this point of a specific threat of that kind.'' In London, a spokesman for the British Foreign Office also said bin Laden has sought chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability but that Britain does not believe he has it. Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist sympathetic to the Taliban and a bin Laden biographer, conducted the Dawn interview. He said he asked bin Laden where he allegedly got the weapons. ``Go to the next question,'' bin Laden replied. Mir said the interview was conducted at an ``undisclosed location'' near Kabul. Mir said he was blindfolded and driven in a jeep from Kabul on Wednesday night to a very cold place where he could hear the sound of anti-aircraft fire. Bin Laden eventually arrived, accompanied by a dozen bodyguards and his deputy, Ayman el-Zawahri. The Dawn published a photograph of Mir sitting with bin Laden on cushions on the floor against a brown backdrop. Bin Laden wore a white turban and scarf with a camouflage jacket. A Kalashnikov rifle lay at his side. The story was also published Saturday in Ausaf, a Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper that he edits, In the interview, Bin Laden did not admit responsibility for the attacks in which terrorists steered passenger planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. But he said they were justified because Washington had been arming Israel, and was conducting ``atrocities'' against Muslims in Iraq, the dispute region of Kashmir and elsewhere. ``The Sept. 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children,'' bin Laden said. ``The real targets were America's icons of military and economic power.'' Bin Laden denied reports that he was suffering a kidney illness and praised Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader. ``He is not under any personal relationship or obligation to me,'' he said. ``He is only discharging his religious duty. I, too, have not chosen this life out of any personal consideration.'' </i> http://wire.ap.org/APnews/?SITE=MOHAN&FRONTID=HOME Is he lying? Would we be foolish to think that its a bluff?
If anyone is interested, here's a link to "The Dawn" Pakistan's English speaking newspaper. http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/10/welcome.htm I'm sure it's slightly slanted, but it might provide some interesting reading.
If he had nuclear weapons he would have used them. I don't think the U.S. would brush off something like this though, but if he had them he would have used them. bin Laden is panicking. He's trying to keep up a facade of being a tough dangerous guy, and unfortunately people are going to fall for it and panic. But I have a feeling that bin Laden never dreamt that the United States would come after him like this. This guy is going to be pushing up daisies soon. I like the way he claims he didn't have anything to do with the attacks and then drops this gem: <i>``The Sept. 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children,'' bin Laden said. ``The real targets were America's icons of military and economic power.'' </i> If he had nothing to do with it how would he know and why is he defending it? And if it wasn't targeted at women and children why did he fly it into one of the largest home of employed CIVILIANS in the United States? He didn't kill women and children, but it's ok to kill innocent people making money and defending our country? He can spin it anyway he wants, he's a dead man anyway.
Mir said he was blindfolded and driven in a jeep from Kabul on Wednesday night to a very cold place where he could hear the sound of anti-aircraft fire.
How did he get in contact with bin Laden's representatives, Zac D? Who did he call to say "I'd like to do an interview with Osama, could you pass it along?" I'm telling you, the Pakistanis know where he is. ISI does, at least.
From what I've read, this guy that interviewed bin Laden has done so many times and he's actually writing bin Laden's autobiography. In the past he's faxed him questions to have answered and stuff like that. I wonder if the CIA could get this guy to swallow some type of tracking device so we could just follow him to the jackpot and take out bin Laden.
Bin Laden does not have nuclear weapons. Saddam has been trying for 20 years, yet has none. If Saddam can't get it with billions of dollars, how can Bin Laden?
That is a very dangerous (not to mention false) assumption to make. Saddam was one month away from having a working nuke when the Gulf War started. Many analysts believe that he now has at least one; a defector recently told the CIA that he has over 300 scientists working around the clock on his nuclear program (to say nothing of his biological program), and that they were very close. If he doesn't already have the bomb, he will have it very soon. The CIA also says that it is possible that bin Laden has two "suitcase" nukes, but lacks the codes to arm them. In that event they will be turned into "dirty" nukes... Other analysts believe that he may already have up to 20 of them. The Russians are missing as many as two dozen "suitcase" nukes - even they are unsure how many are missing. The Red Mafiya has been caught nine separate times trying to sell nuclear material, so don't think for a second that they wouldn't sell them. Reportedly for a million a pop...
I heard on the news that IF he does have nuclear weapons, they are probably made from nuclear waste. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, is very unstable and could literally blow up in their face as soon as they fire the weapons. How the Taliban was defeated in one city!
getsmartnow: That's one form of dirty nuke, but the form they likely have is a plutonium nuke (well, plutonium is a byproduct of the reaction that would occur). It would effectively spray an area with plutonium (which is one of the deadliest substances known to man - a couple of pounds of it would be enough to kill all life on earth), and would make the affected area uninhabitable for several generations. It's not the blast that kills, it's the radioactive poison. If it was detonated in or near a city, and if the wind was blowing right, it could kill several million people. It is a particularly nasty weapon because those it doesn't immediately kill would develop all sorts of cancers later on, babies born to affected people would be deformed/born with cancers, etc. If he has any of those suitcase nukes, then he can make a dirty nuke. And there's really no way to prevent him from using it.
<i>WEAPONS REPORTED ALREADY IN U.S. Pakistan's Frontier Post newspaper reported Saturday that agents from the FBI, the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency were investigating whether bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network may already have "successfully transported several nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction to the United States." The newspaper quoted sources close to the investigation as saying that the agencies had "reached a conclusion that at least two briefcase nuclear weapons may have reached the US shores" and that U.S. officials were on high alert for the possibility that al-Qaida could strike in New York during this week's U.N. General Assembly session. Sources told the Frontier Post that investigators had been able to identify at least one briefcase weapon acquired by al-Qaida from what were described as "Central Asian rogue groups." The weapon was a small Russian device "that carries at least 2 kg of fissionable plutonium and uranium," the newspaper reported, adding that it bore the serial number 9999 and markings indicating that it was manufactured in October 1988.</i> http://www.msnbc.com/news/655528.asp?0cm=c20
Nuclear papers found in Kabul Notes in Arabic, German, Urdu and English described the detonation of explosives to compress plutonium and trigger a thermonuclear reaction, the paper said. The Times said it found other papers giving instructions on how to build smaller bombs and on the development of a “supergun.” I saw an expert on MSNBC talking about these reporters also finding documents from a German company talking about propulsion devices like those used on Stinger missiles. Apparently these terrorist bastards are trying to make mini-nukes and put them on shoulder mounted Stinger style contraptions. Isn't that special?
